Tortoise Poses For A Selfie With Officer After It Was Detained For Causing A Road Block

A Florida law enforcement officer stopped a slow-moving ‘Florida native,’ for disrupting traffic after it refused to take orders from him.

The gopher tortoise was on Nocatee Parkway, north of St. Augustine, when it was spotted by St. Johns County Sheriff’s Deputy L. Fontenot while on routine patrol.

The suspect, a “Gopherus Genus,” ignored the officer and continued to stroll, so Fontenot took the suspect into custody and and the the Sheriff’s Office put out a statement saying, that the officer had a “heartfelt conversation regarding this risky behavior” with the suspect was “released on his own recognizance.”

Fontenot continued to praise the Gopherus behavior and said that it was very cooperative and so he let him go with a warning, but not before he took a selfie of the two.

Gopher tortoises are the only tortoises existing east of the Mississippi River, and are listed as threatened in Florida and are protected under state law, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

These species of tortoises dig deep burrows for shelter which can go till 15 feet long, and they live about 60 years in the wild. They prefer high and dry places to live like humans, and that is a cause of road mortality for them.

The kindness of our law enforcement officers never ceases to amaze us.

Verse of the Day

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. — Psalm 90:2,4 (NIV)